LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Gl  FT    OF 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 


EDGAR    POE 


AND   HIS   CRITICS. 


BY    SARAH    HELEN    WHITMAN. 


NEW   YORK: 

RUDD    &    CARLETON,     130    GRAND    STREET, 

(BROOKS  BUILDING,  COR.  OF  BROADWAY.) 

M  DCCC  LX. 


OF  THE 

(    UNIVERSITY 

'^ 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1859,  by 

EUDD    &    CARLETON, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


E.    CBAIGHEAD, 

Printer,  Stereotyper,  and  Electrotyper, 

CaiUm   SuifiJing, 

81,  83,  ami  85  Centre  Street, 


"Wild  words  wander  here  and  there; 
God's  great  gift  of  speech  abused 
Makes  thy  memory  confused." 

"  We  cannot  see  thy  features  right ; 
They  mix  with  hollow  masks  of  night." 

TENNYSON. 

"  With  these  keys  we  may  partially  unlock  the  mys 
tery." — POE'S  Marginalia. 


172401 


PREFACE. 


DR.  GRISWOLD'S  Memoir  of  Edgar  Poe  has  been  exten 
sively  read  and  circulated ;  its  perverted  facts  and  baseless 
assumptions  have  been  adopted  into  every  subsequent 
memoir  and  notice  of  the  poet,  and  have  been  translated 
into  many  languages.  For  ten  years  this  great  wrong  to 
the  dead  has  passed  unchallenged  and  unrebuked. 

It  has  been  assumed  by  a  recent  English  critic,  that 
"  Edgar  Poe  had  no  friends."  As  an  index  to  a  more 
equitable  and  intelligible  theory  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
his  life,  and  as  an  earnest  protest  against  the  spirit  of  Dr. 
Griswold's  unjust  memoir,  these  pages  are  submitted  to  his 
more  candid  readers  and  critics  by 

ONE  OF  HIS  FRIENDS. 


EDGAR  POE   AND  HIS  CRITICS, 


THE  author  of  the  "  Original  Memoir  "  prefixed  to  the 
volume  of  Poe's  Illustrated  Poems,  recently  published  by 
Redfield,  says,  "  Of  all  the  poets,  whose  lives  have  been 
a  puzzle  and  a  mystery  to  the  world,  there  is  not  one 
more  difficult  to  be  understood  than  Edgar  Allan  Poe." 
The  Rev.  George  Gilfillan,  in  his  very  imaginative  por 
traiture  of  the  poet,  admits  that  the  moral  anatomists 
who  have  met  and  wondered  over  his  life,  have  given 
up  all  attempts  at  dissection  and  diagnosis,  turning 
away  with  the  solemnly  whispered  warning  to  the 
world,  and  especially  to  its  more  brilliant  and  gifted 
intellects,  "  Beware  ! " 


H          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

He  confesses  that  a  history  so  strange  as  that    of 
Edgar  Poe  should  prompt  us  to  new  and  more  search 
ing  methods  of  critical  as  well  as  moral  analysis.     But 
before    such  analysis  can  be  institutecTwe  must  have 
fuller,  more  dispassionate,  and  more  authentic  records 
of  the  phenomena  to  be  analysed.     The  well  written, 
but  very  brief  memoir  prefixed  to  the  Illustrated  Poems, 
and  the  various  sketches  that  have,  from  time  to  time, 
appeared  in  the  French  and  English  periodicals,  are  all 
based  on  the  narrative  of  Dr.  Griswold,   a  narrative 
notoriously  deficient  in  the  great  essentials  of  candor 
and  authenticity.     "  It  is  a  rare  accomplishment,"  says 
one  of  our  most  original  writers,  "  to  hear  a  story  as  it 
is  told  ;  still  rarer  to  remember  it  as  heard,  and  rarest 
of  all  to  tell  it  as  it  is  remembered." 

If  Dr.  Griswold's  Memoir  of  Edgar  Poe  betrays  the 
want  of  any,  or  all,  of  these  accomplishments— if  its 
remorseless  violations  of  the  trust  confided  to  him  are 
such  as  to  make  the  unhallowed  act  of  Trelawney 
towards  the  enshrouded  form  of  the  dead  Byron  seem 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  15 

guiltless  in  comparison,  we  must  nevertheless  endeavour 
to  remember  that  the  memorialist,  himself,  now  claims 
from  us  that  tender  grace  of  charity  that  he  was 
unwilling,  or  unable,  to  accord  to  the  man  who  trusted 
him  as  a  friend. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  at  present  specially  to  review 
Dr.  Griswold's  numerous  misrepresentations,  and  mis- 
statements.  Some  of  the  more  injurious  of  these 
anecdotes  were  disproved,  during  the  life  of  Dr. 
Griswold,  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  and  other  leading 
journals,  without  eliciting  from  him  any  public  state 
ment  in  explanation  or  apology.  Quite  recently  we 
have  had,  through  the  columns  of  the  Home  Journal, 
the  refutation  of  another  calumnious  story,  which  for 
ten  years  has  been  going  the  rounds  of  the  English 
and  American  periodicals. 

We  have  authority  for  stating  that  many  of  the 
disgraceful  anecdotes,  so  industriously  collected  by  Dr. 
Griswold,  are  utterly  fabulous,  while  others  are  perver 
sions  of  the  truth,  more  injurious  in  their  effects  than 


UNIVERSITY 


16          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

unmitigated  fiction.  But,  as  we  have  said,  it  is  not 
our  purpose  at  present  to  revert  to  these.  We  propose 
simply  to  point  out  some  unfounded  critical  estimates 
which  have  obtained  currency  among  readers  who  have 
but  a  partial  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Poe's  more  ima 
ginative  writings,  and  to  record  our  own  impressions  of 
the  character  and  genius  of  the  poet,  as  derived  from 
personal  observation,  and  from  the  testimony  of  those 
who  knew  him.  Although  he  had  been  connected 
with  some  of  the  leading  magazines  of  the  day,  and 
had  edited  for  a  time  with  great  ability  several  success 
ful  periodicals,  Mr.  Poe's  literary  reputation  at  the 
North  had  been  comparatively  limited  until  his  removal 
to  New  York,  in  the  autumn  of  1847,  when  he  became 
personally  known  to  a  large  circle  of  authors  and 
literary  people,  whose  interest  in  his  writings  was 
manifestly  enhanced  by  the  perplexing  anomalies  of  his 
character,  and  by  the  singular  magnetism  of  his  pre 
sence.  One  who  knew  him  at  this  period  of  his  life 
says,  "Everything  about  him  distinguished  him  as  a 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  17 

man  of  mark ;  his  countenance,  person,  and  gait,  were 
alike  characteristic.  His  features  were  regular,  and 
decidedly  handsome.  His  complexion  was  clear  and 
dark ;  the  colour  of  his  fine  eyes  seemingly  a  dark  grey, 
but  on  closer  inspection  they  were  seen  to  be  of  that 
neutral,  violet  tint  which  is  so  difficult  to  define.  His 
forehead  was,  without  exception,  the  finest,  in  propor 
tion  and  expression,  that  we  have  ever  seen.  The 
perceptive  organs  were  not  deficient,  but  seemed  pressed 
out  of  the  way  by  causality,  comparison,  and  construc- 
tiveness.  Close  to  these  rose  the  proud  arches  of 
ideality.  The  coronal  region  was  very  imperfect, 
wanting  in  reverence  and  conscientiousness,  and  pre 
senting  a  key  to  many  of  his  literary  characteristics. 
The  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  are  as  feeble  in  his  chains 
of  thought  as  in  the  literature  of  ancient  Greece."  We 
quote  this  description  for  its  general  fidelity.  Its  esti 
mate  of  literary  characteristics  conveyed  in  the  closing 
sentence  we  shall  revert  to  in  another  place. 

The  engraved  portraits  of  Mr.  Poe  have  very  little 
2* 


i8  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

individuality;  that  prefixed  to  the  volumes  edited  by 
Dr.  Griswold  suggests,  at  first  view,  something  of  the 
general  contour  of  his  face,  but  is  utterly  void  of 
character  and  expression ;  it  has  no  sub-surface.  The 
original  painting,  now  in  possession  of  the  New  York 
Historical  Society,  has  the  same  cold,  automatic  look 
that  makes  the  engraving  so  valueless  as  a  portrait  to 
those  who  remember  the  unmatched  glory  of  his  face 
when  roused  from  its  habitually  introverted  and  ab 
stracted  look  by  some  favorite  theme,  or  profound 
emotion.  Perhaps,  from  its  peculiarly  changeful  and 
translucent  character,  any  adequate  transmission  of  its 
variable  and  subtle  moods  was  impossible.  By  writers 
personally  unacquainted  with  Mr.  Poe  this  engraving 
has  often  been  favourably  noticed.  Mr.  Hannay,  in  a 
Memoir  prefixed  to  the  first  London  edition  of  Poe's 
Poems,  calls  it  an  interesting  and  characteristic  portrait, 
"a  fine,  thoughtful  face  with  lineaments  of  delicacy, 
such  as  belong  only  to  genius  or  high  blood — the 
forehead  grand  and  pale,  the  eye  dark  and  gleaming 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  19 

with  sensibility  and  soul — a  face  to  inspire  men  with 
interest  and  curiosity." 

There    is   a   quiet   drawing-room   in  street, 

New  York— a  sort  of  fragrant  and  delicious  "  clover- 
nook"  in  the  heart  of  the  noisy  city — where  hung, 
some  three  years  ago,  the  original  painting  from  which 
this  engraving  is  a  copy.  Happening  to  meet  there  at 
the  time  a  company  of  authors  and  poets,  among 
whom  were  Mary  Forest,  Alice  and  Phoebe  Gary,  the 
Stoddards,  T.  B.  Aldrich,  and  others,  we  heard  one 
of  the  party  say,  in  speaking  of  the  portrait,  that  its 
aspect  was  that  of  a  beautiful  and  desolate  shrine 
from  which  the  Genius  had  departed,  and  that  it 
recalled  certain  lines  to  one  of  the  antique  marbles  : 

"Oh  melancholy  eyes! 

Oh  empty  eyes,  from  which  the  soul  has  gone 
To  see  the  far-off  countries !  " 

Near  this  luminous  but  impassive  face,  with  its  sad 
and  soulless  eyes,  was  a  portrait  of  Poe's  unrelenting 


2o          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

biographist.     In  a  recess  opposite  hung  a  picture  of 

the  fascinating  Mrs. ,  whose  genius  both  had  so 

fervently  admired,  and  for  whose  coveted  praise  and 
friendship  both  had  been  competitors.  Looking  at  the 
beautiful  portrait  of  this  lady — the  face  so  full  of 
enthusiasm,  and  dreamy,  tropical  sunshine — remember 
ing  the  eloquent  words  of  her  praise,  as  expressed  in 
the  prodigal  and  passionate  exaggerations  of  her  verse, 
one  ceases  to  wonder  at  the  rivalries  and  enmities 
enkindled  within  the  hearts  of  those  who  admired  her 
genius  and  her  grace — rivalries  and  enmities  which  the 
grave  itself  could  not  cancel  or  appease. 

Of  the  portrait  prefixed  to  the  illustrated  poems, 
recently  published  by  Redfield,  Mr.  Willis  says,  "  The 
reader  who  has  the  volume  in  his  hand  turns  back 
musingly  to  look  upon  the  features  of  the  poet,  in 
whom  resided  such  inspiration.  But,  though  well 
engraved  and  useful  as  recalling  his  features  to  those 
who  knew  them,  with  the  angel  shining  through,  the 
picture  is  from  a  daguerreotype,  and  gives  no  idea  of 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          21 

the  beauty  of  Edgar  Poe.  The  exquisitely  chiselled 
features,  the  habitual  but  intellectual  melancholy,  the 
clear  pallor  of  the  complexion,  and  the  calm  eye  like 
the  molten  stillness  of  a  slumbering  volcano,  composed 
a  countenance  of  which  this  portrait  is  but  the  skeleton. 
After  reading  the  Raven,  Ulalume,  Lenore,  and  Annabel 
Lee,  the  luxuriast  in  poetry  will  better  conceive  what 
his  face  might  have  been." 

It  was  soon  after  his  removal  to  New  York  that  Mr. 
Poe  became  acquainted  with  the  editors  of  the  Mirror, 
and  was  employed  by  them  as  a  writer  for  that  Journal. 
Mr.  Willis,  in  a  recent  notice  of  the  illustrated  poems, 
has  paid  an  eloquent  tribute  to  his  memory,  expressed 
in  a  spirit  of  rare  kindliness  and  generosity. 

From  March  1845,  to  January  1846,  he  was  asso 
ciated  with  Mr.  C.  F.  Briggs  in  editing  the  Broadway 
Journal.  In  the  autumn  of  1845  he  was  often  seen  at 
the  brilliant  literary  circles  in  Waverley  Place,  where 
weekly  reunions  of  noted  artists  and  men  of  letters,  at 
the  house  of  an  accomplished  poetess,  attracted  some 


22  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

of  the  best  intellectual  society  of  the  city.  At  the 
request  of  his  hostess,  Mr.  Poe  one  evening  electrified 
the  gay  company,  assembled  there,  by  the  recitation  of 
the  wierd  poem  to  whose  sad,  strange  burden  so  many 
hearts  have  since  echoed.  This  was  a  few  weeks  pre 
vious  to  the  publication  of  the  Kaven  in  the  American 
Review.  Mrs.  Browning,  in  a  private  letter,  written  a 
few  weeks  after  its  publication  in  England,  says,  "  This 
vivid  writing — this  power  which  is  felt — has  produced 
a  sensation  here  in  England.  Some  of  my  friends  are 
taken  by  the  fear  of  it,  and  some  by  the  music.  I 
hear  of  persons  who  are  haunted  by  the  'Nevermore,' 
and  an  acquaintance  of  mine  who  has  the  misfortune  of 
possessing  a  bust  of  Pallas,  cannot  bear  to  look  at  it  in 
the  twilight.  Then  there  is  a  tale  going  the  rounds  of 
the  newspapers,  about  mesmerism,  which  is  throwing 
us  all  into  'most  admired  disorder'— dreadful  doubts  as 
to  whether  it  can  be  true,  as  the  children  say  of  ghost 
stories.  The  certain  thing  about  it  is  the  power  of  the 
writer." 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  23 

A  woman  of  fine  genius,  who  at  this  time  made  his 
acquaintance,  says,  in  some  recently  published  com 
ments  on  his  writings  :  "  It  was  in  the  brilliant  circles 
that  assembled  in  the  winter  of  1845-6  at  the  houses 
of  Dr.  Dewey,  Miss  Anna  C.  Lynch,  Mr.  Lawson,  and 
others,  that  we  first  met  Edgar  Poe.  His  manners 
were  at  these  re-unions  refined  and  pleasing,  and  his 
style  and  scope  of  conversation  that  of  a  gentleman  and 
a  scholar.  Whatever  may  have  been  his  previous 
career,  there  was  nothing  in  his  appearance  or  manner 
to  indicate  his  excesses.  He  delighted  in  the  society 
of  superior  women,  and  had  an  exquisite  perception  of 
all  graces  of  manner,  and  shades  of  expression.  He 
was  an  admiring  listener,  and  an  unobtrusive  observer. 
"We  all  recollect  the  interest  felt  at  the  time  in  every 
thing  emanating  from  his  pen — the  relief  it  was  from 
the  dulness  of  ordinary  writers — the  certainty  of  some 
thing  fresh  and  suggestive.  His  critiques  were  read 
with  avidity ;  not  that  he  convinced  the  judgment,  but 
that  people  felt  their  ability  and  their  courage.  Right 


24          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

or  wrong  lie  was  terribly  in  earnest."  Like  De  Quincey, 
he  never  supposed  anything,  he  always  knew. 

The  peculiar  character  of  his  intellect  seemed  with 
out  a  prototype  in  literature.  He  had  more  than 
De  Quincey's  power  of  analysis,  with  a  constructive 
unity  and  completeness  of  which  the  great  English 
essayist  has  given  no  indication.  His  pre-eminence 
in  constructive  and  analytical  skill  was  beginning  to 
be  universally  admitted,  and  the  fame  and  prestige  of 
his  genius  were  rapidly  increasing.  But  the  dangerous 
censorship  he  soon  after  assumed,  as  the  author  of  a 
series  of  sketches,  some  of  which  have  been  since 
published  as  the  "Literati,"  exposed  him  to  frequent 
indignant  criticism,  while,  by  his  personal  errors  and 
indiscretions,  he  drew  upon  himself  much  social  censure 
and  espionage,  and  became  the  victim  of  dishonoring 
accusations  from  which  honor  itself  had  forbidden  him 
to  exculpate  himself. 

It  has  been  said,  in  allusion  to  the  severity  of  his 
literary  strictures,  that  a  most  fitting  escutcheon  for 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  25 

Mr.  Poe  might  have  been  found  in  the  crest  of  Walter 
Scott's  puissant  Templar,  Bois  Guilbert, — a  raven  in 
full  flight,  holding  in  its  claws  a  skull,  and  bearing  the 
motto,  "  Gfare  le  Corbeau" 

Mr.  Longfellow  has  very  generously  said,  in  a  letter 
to  the  editor  of  the  Literary  Messenger  :  "  The  harsh 
ness  of  his  criticism  I  have  always  attributed  to  the 
irritation  of  a  sensitive  nature  chafed  by  some  inde 
finite  sense  of  wrong." 

A  recent  and  not  too  lenient  critic  tells  us  that  "  it 
was  his  sensitiveness  to  artistic  imperfections,  rather 
than  any  malignity  of  feeling,  that  made  his  criticisms 
so  severe,  and  procured  him  a  host  of  enemies  among 
persons  towards  whom  he  entertained  no  personal  ill- 
will." 

In  evidence  of  the  habitual  courtesy  and  good 
nature  noticeable  to  all  who  best  knew  him  in  domestic 
and  social  life,  we  remember  an  incident  that  occurred 
at  one  of  the  soirees  to  which  we  have  alluded.  A 

lady,  noted  for  her  great  lingual  attainments,  wishing 
3 


26  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

to  apply  a  wholesome  check  to  the  vanity  of  a  young 
author,  proposed  inviting  him  to  translate  for  the  com 
pany  a  difficult  passage  in  Greek,  of  which  language 
she  knew  him  to  be  profoundly  ignorant,  although  * 
given  to  a  rather  pretentious  display  of  Greek  quota 
tions  in  his  published  writings.  Poe's  earnest  ajul 
persistent  remonstrance  against  this  piece  of  mechancete 
alone  averted  the  embarrassing  test. 

Sometimes  his  fair  young  wife  was  seen  with  him  at 
these  weekly  assemblages  in  Waverley  Place.  She  sel 
dom  took  part  in  the  conversation,  but  the  memory  of 
her  sweet  and  girlish  face,  always  animated  and  viva 
cious,  repels  the  assertion,  afterwards  so  cruelly  and 
recklessly  made,  that  she  died  a  victim  to  the  neglect 
and  unkindness  of  her  husband,  "  who,"  as  it  has  been 
said,  "deliberately  sought  her  death  that  he  might 
embalm  her  memory  in  immortal  dirges.1'  An  article 
in  Eraser's  Magazine,  published  some  two  years  ago, 
repeats  the  assertion  that  Poe  was  the  murderer  of  his 
wife,  "  causing  her  to  die  of  starvation  and  a  broken 


OF 

i     UNIVERSITY 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  27 

heart."  GiJfillan,  ascribing  to  him  "passions  controlled 
by  the  presence  of  art  until  they  resembled  sculptured 
flame,"  tells  us  that  he  caused  the  death  of  his  wife 
that  he  might  have  a  fitting  theme  for  the  Raven.  A 
serious  objection  to  this  ingenious  theory  may  perhaps 
be  found  in  the  "refractory  fact"  that  the  poem  was 
published  more  than  a  year  before  the  event  which 
these  persons  assume  it  was  intended  to  commemorate. 

We  might  cite  the  testimony  alike  of  friends  and 
enemies  to  Foe's  unvarying  kindness  towards  his  young 
wife  and  cousin,  if  other  testimony  were  needed  than 
that  of  the  tender  love  still  cherished  for  his  memory 
by  one  whose  life  was  made  doubly  desolate  by  his 
death— the  sister  of  his  father,  and  the  mother  of  his 
Virginia. 

It  is  well  known  to  those  acquainted  with  the  parties 
that  the  young  wife  of  Edgar  Poe  died  of  lingering 
consumption,  which  manifested  itself  even  in  her  girl 
hood.  All  who  have  had  opportunities  for  observation 
in  the  matter  have  noticed  her  husband's  tender  devotion 


28          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

to  her  during  her  prolonged  illnesses.  Even  Dr.  Gris- 
wold  speaks  of  having  visited  him  during  a  period  of 
illness  caused  by  protracted  anxiety  and  watching  by 
the  side  of  his  sick  wife.  It  is  true  that  notwithstanding 
her  vivacity  and  cheerfulness  at  the  time  we  have 
alluded  to,  her  health  was,  even  then,  rapidly  sinking ; 
and  it  was  for  her  dear  sake  and  for  the  recovery  of 
that  peace  which  had  been  so  fatally  perilled  amid  the 
irritations  and  anxieties  of  his  New  York  life,  that  Poe 
left  the  city  and  removed  to  the  little  Dutch  cottage  in 
Fordham,  where  he  passed  the  three  remaining  years  of 
his  life.  It  was  to  this  quiet  haven  in  the  beautiful 
spring  of  1846,  when  the  fruit  trees  were  all  in  bloom 
and  the  grass  in  its  freshest  verdure,  that  he  brought 
his  Virginia  to  die.  Here  he  watched  her  failing 
breath  in  loneliness  and  privation  through  many  solitary 
moons,  until,  on  a  desolate,  dreary  day  of  the  ensuing 
winter,  he  saw  her  remains  borne  from  beneath  its  lowly 
roof  to  a  neighbouring  cemetery.  It  was  towards  the 
close  of  the  year  following  her  death — his  "most 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          29 

immemorial  year  " — that  he  wrote  the  strange  threnody 
of  "  Ulalume."  This  poem,  perhaps  the  most  original 
and  wierdly  suggestive  of  all  his  poems,  resembles  at 
first  sight  some  of  Turner's  landscapes,  being  apparently 
"  without  form  and  void,  and  having  darkness  on  the 
face  of  it."  It  is,  nevertheless,  in  its  basis,  although  not 
in  the  precise  correspondence  of  time,  simply  historical. 
Such  was  the  poet's  lonely  midnight  walk — such,  amid 
the  desolate  memories  and  sceneries  of  the  hour,  was 
the  new-born  hope  enkindled  within  his  heart  at  sight 
of  the  morning  star — 

"  Astarte's  bediamonded  crescent " — 

coming  up  as  the  beautiful  harbinger  of  love  and 
happiness  yet  awaiting  him  in  the  untried  future,  and 
such  the  sudden  transition  of  feeling,  the  boding  dread, 
that  supervened  on  discovering  that  which  had  at  first 
been  unnoted,  that  it  shone,  as  if  in  mockery  or  in 
warning,  directly  over  the  sepulchre  of  the  lost  "Ula 
lume."  A  writer  in  the  London  Critic,  after  quoting 
3* 


30          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

the  opening  stanzas  of  Ulalume,  says,  "  These  to  many 
will  appear  only  words,  but  what  wondrous  words ! 
What  a  spell  they  wield  !  What  a  withered  unity  there 
is  in  them!  The  instant  they  are  uttered  a  misty 
picture  with  a  tarn,  dark  as  a  murderer's  eye,  below, 
and  the  thin  yellow  leaves  of  October  fluttering  above, 
exponents  of  a  misery  which  scorns  the  name  of  sorrow, 
is  hung  up  in  the  chambers  of  your  soul  for  ever." 

An  English  writer,  now  living  in  Paris,  the  author 
of  some  valuable  contributions  to  our  American  period 
icals,  passed  several  weeks  at  the  little  cottage  in  Ford- 
ham,  in  the  early  autumn  of  1847,  and  described  to  us, 
with  a  truly  English  appreciativeness,  its  unrivalled 
neatness  and  the  quaint  simplicity  of  its  interior  and 
surroundings.  It  was  at  the  time  bordered  by  a  flower- 
garden,  whose  clumps  of  rare  dahlias  and  brilliant  beds 
of  fall  flowers  showed,  in  the  careful  culture  bestowed 
upon  them,  the  fine  floral  taste  of  the  inmates. 

An  American  writer,  who  visited  the  cottage  during 
the  summer  of  the  same  year,  described  it  as  half 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  31 

buried  in  fruit  trees,  and  as  Laving  a  thick  grove  of 

pines  in  its  immediate  neighbourhood.     The  proximity 

of  the  railroad,  and  the  increasing  population  of  the 

little  village,  have  since  wrought  great  changes  in  the 

place.     Round  an  old  cherry-tree,  near  the  door,  was  a 

broad  bank  of  greenest  turf.     The  neighbouring  beds  of 

mignonette  and  heliotrope,  and  the  pleasant  shade  above, 

made  this  a  favourite  seat.     Rising  at  four  o'clock  in 

the  morning,  for  a  walk  to  the  magnificent  Aqueduct 

bridge  over  Harlem  river,  our  informant  found  the  poet, 

with  his  mother,   standing  on  the  turf  beneath   the 

cherry-tree,  eagerly  watching  the  movements  of  two 

beautiful  birds  that  seemed  contemplating  a  settlement 

in  its  branches.     He  had  some  rare  tropical  birds  in 

cao-es,  which  he  cherished  and  petted  with  assiduous 

care.     Our  English  friend  described  him  as  giving  to 

his  birds  and  his  flowers  a  delighted  attention  that 

seemed  quite  inconsistent  with  the  gloomy  and  grotesque 

character  of  his  writings.     A  favourite  cat,  too,  enjoyed 

his  friendly  patronage,  and  often  when  he  was  engaged 


32  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

in  composition  it  seated  itself  on  his  shoulder,  purring 
as  in  complacent  approval  of  the  work  proceeding  under 
its  supervision. 

During  Mr.  Poe's  residence  at  Fordham  a  walk  to 
High  Bridge  was  one  of  his  favourite  and  habitual 
recreations.  The  water  of  the  Aqueduct  is  conveyed 
across  the  river  on  a  range  of  lofty  granite  arches, 
which  rise  to  the  height  of  a  hundred  and  forty-five 
feet  above  high-water  level.  On  the  top  a  turfed  and 
grassy  road,  used  only  by  foot-passengers,  and  flanked 
on  either  side  by  a  low  parapet  of  granite,  makes  one 
of  the  finest  promenades  imaginable. 

The  winding  river  and  the  high  rocky  shores  at 
the  western  extremity  of  the  bridge  are  seen  to  great 
advantage  from  this  lofty  avenue.  In  the  last  melan 
choly  years  of  his  life — "  the  lonesome  latter  years" — 
Poe  was  accustomed  to  walk  there  at  all  times  of  the 
day  and  night;  often  pacing  the  then  solitary  path 
way  for  hours  without  meeting  a  human  being.  A  lit 
tle  to  the  east  of  the  cottage  rises  a  ledge  of  rocky 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          33 

ground,  partly  covered  with  pines  and  cedars,  command 
ing  a  fine  view  of  the  surrounding  country  and  of  the 
picturesque  college  of  St.  John's,  which  had  at  that  time 
in  its  neighbourhood  an  avenue  of  venerable  old  trees. 
This  rocky  ledge  was  also  one  of  the  poet's  favourite 
resorts.  Here  through  long  summer  days  and  through 
solitary,  star-lit  nights  he  loved  to  sit,  dreaming  his  gor 
geous  waking  dreams,  or  pondering  the  deep  problems 
of  "The  Universe," — that  grand  "prose-poem"  to  which 
he  devoted  the  last  and  maturest  energies  of  his  won 
derful  intellect.  The  abstracted  enthusiasm  with  which 
he  pursued  his  great  quest  into  the  cosmogony  of  the 
universe  is  an  earnest  of  the  passionate  intellectual  sin 
cerity  which  we  shall  presently  take  occasion  to  illus 
trate. 

Wanting  in  that  supreme  central  force  or  faculty  of 
the  mind,  whose  function  is  a  God-conscious  and  God- 
adoring  faith,  Edgar  Poe  sought  earnestly  and  conscien 
tiously  for  such  solution  of  the  great  problems  of 
thought  as  were  alone  attainable  to  an  intellect  hurled 


34  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

from  its  balance  by  the  abnormal  preponderance  of  the 
analytical  and  imaginative  faculties.  It  was  to  this 
very  disproportion  that  we  are  indebted  for  some  of 
those  marvellous  intellectual  creations,  which,  as  we 
shall  hope  to  prove,  had  an  important  significance  and 
an  especial  adaptation  to  the  time. 

A  very  intolerant  article  on  Mr.  Poe  has  recently 
been  republished  in  this  country  from  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  April  1858,  in  which  the  most  injurious 
anecdotes  of  Dr.  Grisw old's  memoir  have  been  patiently 
copied  and  italicised,  and  their  enormities  enhanced  by 
the  gratuitous  suppositions  and  assumptions  of  the 
writer. 

As  an  instance  of  the  inconsequent  reasoning  in 
which  the  reviewer  sometimes  indulges,  we  quote  a 
single  passage  from  the  article  in  question.  "It  is," 
says  the  Edinburgh  critic,  "a  curious  example  of  Poe's 
superficial  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  other 
lands,  that  in  recapitulating  the  titles  of  a  mysterious 
library  of  books  in  'the  House  of  Usher'  he  quotes 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  35 

among  a  list  of  cabalistical  volumes  Gresset's  'Vertvert,' 
evidently  in  complete  ignorance  of  what  he  is  talking 
about.  Gressefs  '  Vertverf  is  the  antipodes  of  Poe's 
^  Raven]  though  the  comic  interest  of  the  former  and 
the  tragic  interest  of  the  latter  turn  alike  on  the 
reiteration  of  bird-language." 

The  process  of  reasoning  by  which  Mr.  Poe's  "  super 
ficial  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  other  lands"  is 
deducible  from  the  fact  that  "Gresset's  'Vertvert'  is 
the  antipodes  of  Poe's  '  Raven,'  "  may  be  very  apparent 
to  the  learned  reviewer,  but  is  certainly  not  quite  clear 
to  the  common  reader. 

We  are  not  aware  that  any  of  the  works  cited  in  this 
catalogue  bear  a  resemblance  to  the  Raven.  Mr.  Poe 
must  certainly  be  acquitted  of  intending  to  suggest  such 
a  resemblance,  since  the  Raven  was  at  the  time  unwrit 
ten.  The  Edinburgh  critic,  after  admitting  that  Poe's 
Raven  belongs  to  "that  rare  and  remarkable  class  of 
productions  that  suffice,  singly,  to  make  a  reputation," 
assumes,  oddly  enough,  that  "the  originality  apparent 


36  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

in  Mr.  Poe's  writings  is  due  rather  to  the  deformity  of 
his  moral  character  than  to  the  vigor  or  freshness  of 
his  intellect,"  and,  finding  himself  "profoundly  im 
pressed  by  Poe's  wonderful  solutions  of  the  most  diffi 
cult  problems,"  suspects  that  "it  is  after  all,  an  easy 
thing  for  man  to  solve  the  riddles  which  he  himself  hae 
fabricated." 

There  is  a  prevalent  impression  among  critics  and 
readers  who  have  never  felt  the  magnetism  of  Poe's 
wierd  imagination,  nor  come  into  full  rapport  with  his 
genius,  that  his  intellectual  creations  were  always  the 
result  of  deliberate  effort  and  artistic  skill ;  that  they 
were  not  genuine  outgrowths  of  the  inward  life  but 
arbitrary  creations  of  the  will  and  the  intellect. 

This  opinion,  founded  in  part  upon  the  subtlety  and 
refinement  of  his  analytical  faculty,  has  been  seemingly 
guaranteed  by  some  of  his  own  statements  in  regard  to 
his  methods  of  composition.  A  writer  in  the  "North 
American"  characterizes  his  poetry  as  "word-maneu 
vering,"  and  one  of  his  critics,  sitting  at  the  time  in 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          37 

Harper's  "Easy-chair,"  says,  "  Such  curious  and  beautiful 
performances  as  Poe's  '  Raven '  and  '  Sleigh-bells '  are 
not  poems ;  they  are,  simply,  ingenious  experiments 
upon  the  sound  of  words."  Were  this  grand  lyric  of 
"  The  Bells "  simply  a  lyric  of  "  Sleigh-bells "  as  the 
"  Easy-chair"  pleasantly  calls  it,  when  were  Sleigh-bells 
ever  heard  to  ring  so  merrily  before  ?  Listen ! 

"  How  they  tinkle,  tinkle,  tinkle 

In  the  icy  air  of  night ! 
"While  the  stars  that  oversprinkle 
All  the  heavens  seem  to  twinkle 

With  a  crystalline  delight  ; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rhyme, 
To  the  tintinnabulation  that  so  musically  wells 

From  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  beUs, 

Bells,  bells,  bells— 
From  the  jingling  and  the  tinkling  of  the  bells." 

It  cannot  indeed  be  denied  that  the  mere  artistic  treat 
ment  of  this  poem  is  truly  marvellous.     The  metallic 
4 


38  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

ring  and  resonance — the  vibration  and  reverberation  of 
the  rhythm — is  such  that  one  of  its  admirers  says,  "We 
can  never  read  it  without  pausing  after  every  verse  to 
let  the  peals  of  sound  die  away  on  the  'bosom  of  the 
palpitating  air,'  that  we  may  commence  the  succeeding 
stanza  in  silence."  Another,  who  appreciates  its  ideal 
truth  of  conception  not  less  than  its  high  rhythmical  art, 
says,  "  I  was  astonished  one  night  in  watching  a  con 
flagration,  and  repeating,  amid  the  clash  and  clang  of 
the  alarm-bells,  the  third  stanza  of  the  poem,  to  find  how 
marvellously  the  movement  of  the  verse  timed  with  the 
peals  of  sound,  and  how  truly  the  poem  reproduced  the 
sense-of  danger  which  the  sound  of  the  bells,  and  the 
glare  and  mad  ascension  of  the  flames,  and  the  pallor  of 
the  moonlight  conveyed.  All  the  poetry  of  a  confla 
gration  is  in  that  stanza,  both  in  sound  and  sense,  and 
Dante  himself  could  not  have  rendered  it  more  truly." 
So  many  faculties  were  brought  into  play  in  the 
expression  of  Poe's  poetical  compositions  that  readers  in 
whom  the  critical  intellect  prevails  over  the  imaginative 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          39 

often  acknowledge  the  refined  art,  the  tact,  the  subtlety, 
the  faultless  method,  while  the  potent  magnetism  of  his 
genius  utterly  escapes  them.  There  are  persons  whom 
nature  has  made  non-conductors  to  this  sort  of  elec 
tricity. 

The  critic  of  the  "North  American"  to  whose 
strictures  we  have  alluded,  charges  him  with  overlooking 
moral  and  spiritual  ideas,  and  calls  his  works  "  rich  and 
elaborate  pieces  of  art,"  wanting  in  "  the  vis  vitea  which 
alone  can  make  of  words  living  things."  Bayne,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  his  fine  essay  on  "Tennyson  and  his 
Teachers,"  alludes  to  the  "Haunted  Palace"  of  "the 
great  American  poet,"  and  contrasts  its  wonderfully 
spiritual,  subjective,  and  ideal  character  with  the  rich 
and  accurate  detail  of  Tennyson's  "Palace  of  Art." 
He  classes  the  American  poet  with  those  who  have 
scattered  imaginative  spells  rather  than  finished  elabo 
rate  imaginative  pictures.  A  greater  mistake  in  literary 
criticism  could  not  well  be  made  than  that  which  is 
evinced  in  the  frequent  application  of  the  word  "  sensu- 


40  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

ous"  to  the  singularly  ideal  and  subjective  character  of 
Poe's  imaginative  creations.  We  do  not  of  course 
intend  to  include  among  these,  his  stories  of  a  purely 
inventive  or  grotesque  character. 

It  is  not  to  be  questioned  that  Poe  was  a  consummate 
master  of  language — that  he  had  sounded  all  the  secrets 
of  rhythm — that  he  understood  and  availed  himself  of 
all  its  resources ;  the  balance  and  poise  of  syllables — 
the  alternations  of  emphasis  and  cadence— of  vowel- 
sounds  and  consonants — and  all  the  metrical  sweetness 
of  "phrase  and  metaphrase."  Yet  this  consummate  art 
was  in  him  united  with  a  rare  simplicity.  He  was  the 
most  genuine  of  enthusiasts,  as  we  think  we  shall  pre 
sently  show.  His  genius  would  follow  no  leadings 
but  those  of  his  own  imperial  intellect.  With  all  his 
vast  mental  resources  he  could  never  write  an  occasional 
poem,  or  adapt  himself  to  the  taste  of  a  popular  audi 
ence.  His  graver  narratives  and  fantasies  are  often 
related  with  an  earnest  simplicity,  solemnity,  and  appa 
rent  fidelity,  attributable,  not  so  much  to  a  deliberate 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          41 
artistic  purpose,  as  to  that  power  of  vivid  and  intense 


conception  that  made  his  dreams  realities,,  and  his  life  a 
dream.  >• . -*> 

The  strange  fascination — the  unmatched  charm  of  his 
conversation — consisted  in  its  genuineness.  Even  Dr. 
Griswold,  who  has  studiously  represented  him  as  cold, 
passionless,  and  perfidious,  admits  that  his  conversation 
was  at  times  almost  "supra-mortal  in  its  eloquence;" 
that  "his  large  and  variably  expressive  eyes  looked 
repose  or  shot  fiery  tumult  into  theirs  who  listened, 
while  his  own  face  glowed,  or  was  changeless  in  pallor, 
as  his  imagination  quickened  his  blood  or  drew  it  back 
frozen  to  his  heart." 

These  traits  are  not  the  possible  accompaniments  of 
attributes  which  Dr.  Griswold  has  elsewhere  ascribed  to 
him.  As  a  conversationist  we  do  not  remember  his 
equal.  We  have  heard  the  veteran  Landor  (called  by 
high  authority  the  best  talker  in  England)  discuss  with 
scathing  sarcasm  the  popular  writers  of  the  day,  convey 
his  political  animosities  by  fierce  invectives  on  the  "pre- 


42  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

tentious  coxcomb,  Albert,"  and  "the  cunning  knave,  Na 
poleon,"  or  describe,  in  words  of  strange  depth  and  ten 
derness,  the  peerless  charm  of  goodness  and  the  naive 
social  graces  in  the  beautiful  mistress  of  Gore  House, 
"  the  most  gorgeous  Lady  Blessington."  We  have  heard 
the  Howadji  talk  of  the  gardens  of  Damascus  till  the  air 
seemed  purpled  and  perfumed  with  its  roses.  We  have 
listened  to  the  trenchant  and  vivid  talk  of  the  Autocrat ; 
to  the  brilliant  and  exhaustless  colloquial  resources  of 
John  Neal,  and  Margaret  Fuller.  We  have  heard  the 
racy  talk  of  Orestes  Brownson  in  the  old  days  of  his 
freedom  and  power,  have  listened  to  the  serene  wis 
dom  of  Alcott,  and  treasured  up  memorable  sentences 
from  the  golden  lips  of  Emerson.  Unlike  the  conversa 
tional  power  evinced  by  any  of  these  was  the  earnest, 
opulent,  unpremeditated  speech  of  Edgar  Poe. 

Like  his  writings  it  presented  a  combination  of  quali 
ties  rarely  met  with  in  the  same  person ;  a  cool,  deci 
sive  judgment,  a  wholly  unconventional  courtesy  and 
sincere  grace  of  manner,  and  an  imperious  enthusiasm 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          43 

which  brought  all  hearers  within  the  circle  of  its  influ 
ence. 

J.  M.  Daniel,  Esq.,  United  States  Minister  at  Turin, 
who  knew  Poe  well  during  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
says  of  him,  "  His  conversation  was  the  very  best  we 
have  ever  listened  to.  We  have  never  heard  any  so 
suggestive  of  thought,  or  any  from  which  one  gained  so 
much.  On  literary  subjects  it  was  the  essence  of  correct 
and  profound  criticism  divested  of  all  formal  pedantries 
and  introductory  ideas — the  kernel  clear  of  the  shell. 
He  was  not  a  brilliant  talker  in  the  common,  after-dinner 
sense  of  the  word ;  he  was  not  a  maker  of  fine  points, 
or  a  frequent  sayer  of  funny  things.  What  he  said  was 
prompted  entirely  by  the  moment,  and  seemed  uttered 
for  the  pleasure  of  uttering  it.  In  his  animated  moods 
he  talked  with  an  abstracted  earnestness  as  if  he  were 
dictating  to  an  amanuensis,  and,  if  he  spoke  of  individu 
als,  his  ideas  ran  upon  their  moral  and  intellectual  quali 
ties  rather  than  upon  the  idiosyncrasies  of  their  active 
visible  phenomena,  or  the  peculiarities  of  their  manner." 


44  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

We  have  said  that  the  charm  of  his  conversation 
consisted  in  its  genuineness — its  wonderful  directness 
and  sincerity.  We  believe,  too,  that  in  the  artistic 
utterance  of  poetic  emotion  he  was  at  all  times  passion 
ately  genuine.  His  proud  reserve,  his  profound  melan 
choly,  his  unworldliness — may  we  not  say  his  unearth- 
liness  of  nature — made  his  character  one  very  difficult 
of  comprehension  to  the  casual  observer.  The  complex 
ity  of  his  intellect,  its  incalculable  resources,  and  his 
masterly  control  of  those  resources  when  brought  into 
requisition  for  the  illustration  of  some  favorite  theme,  or 
cherished  creation,  led  to  the  current  belief  that  its 
action  was  purely  arbitrary — that  he  could  write  with 
out  emotion  or  earnestness  at  the  deliberate  dictation  of 
the  will.  A  certain  class  of  his  writings  undeniably 
exhibits  the  faculties  of  ingenuity  and  invention  in  a 
prominent  and  distinctive  light.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  there  was  another  phase  of  his  mind — 
one  not  less  distinctive  and  characteristic  of  his  genius — 
which  manifested  itself  in  creations  of  a  totally  different 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          45 

order  and  expression.  ^  It  can  hardly  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  the  most  careless  reader  that  certain  ideas 
exercised  over  him  the  power  of  fascination.  They 
return,  again  and  again,  in  his  stories  and  poems  and 
seem  like  the  utterances  of  a  mind  possessed  with 
thoughts,  emotions,  and  images  of  which  the  will  and 
the  understanding  take  little  cognizance.  In  the  deline 
ation  of  these,  his  language  often  acquires  a  power  and 
pregnancy  eluding  all  attempts  at  analysis.  It  is  then 
that  by  a  few  miraculous  words  he  evokes  emotional 
states  or  commands  pictorial  effects  which  live  for  ever 
in  the  memory  and  from  a  part  of  its  eternal  inheritance. 
No  analysis  can  dissect — no  criticism  can  disenchant 
them. 

As  specimens  of  the  class  we  have  indicated  read 
"Ligeia,"  "Morella,"  "Eleanora."  Observe  in  them 
the  prevailing  and  dominant  thoughts  of  his  inner 
life — ideas  of  "fate  and  metaphysical  aid" — of  psy- 
chal  and  spiritual  agencies,  energies  and  potences. 
See  in  them  intimations  of  mysterious  phenomena 


46          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

which,  at  the  time  when  these  fantasies  were  indited, 
were  regarded  as  fables  and  dreams,  but  which  have 
since  (in  their  phenomenal  aspect  simply)  been  recog 
nised  as  matters  of  popular  experience  and  scientific 
research. 

In  "Ligeia,"  the  sad  and  stately  symmetry  of  the  sen 
tences,  their  rhythmical  cadence,  the  Moresque  sumptu- 
ousness  of  imagery  with  which  the  story  is  invested,  and 
the  wierd  metempsychosis  which  it  records,  produce  an 
effect  on  the  reader  altogether  peculiar  in  character 
and,  as  we  think,  quite  inexplicable  without  a  reference 
to  the  supernatural  inspiration  which  seems  to  pervade 
them.  |  In  the  moods  of  mind  and  phases  of  passion 
which  this  story  represents  we  have  no  laboured  artistic 
effects;!  we  look  into  the  haunted  chambers  of  the 
poet's  own  mind  and  see,  as  through  a  veil,  the  strange 
experiences  of  his  inner  life ;  while,  in  the  dusk  magnifi 
cence  of  its  imagery,  we  have  the  true  heraldic  blazonry 
of  an  imagination  royally  dowered  and  descended.  In 
this,  as  in  all  that  class  of  stories  we  have  named,  the 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  47 

author's  mind  seems  struggling  desperately  and  vainly 
with  the  awful  mystery  of  Death. J 

In  "Morella,"  as  in  "Ligeia,"  the  parties  are  occupied 
with  the  same  mystic  philosophies — engrossed  in  the 
same  recondite  questions  of  "  life  and  death  and  spiritual 
unity,"  questions  of  "  that  identity  which,  at  death,  is, 
or  is  not,  lost  forever."  Each  commemorates  a  psychal 
attraction  which  transcends  the  dissolution  of  the  mortal 
body  and  oversweeps  the  grave ;  the  passionate  soul  of 
the  departed  transfusing  itself  through  the  organism  of 
another  to  manifest  its  deathless  love.  Who  does  not 
remember  as  a  strain  of  Ionian  melody  the  story  of 
"Eleanora?"  Who  does  not  lapse  into  a  dream  as  he 
remembers  the  "River  of  Silence"  and  "The  Valley  of 
the  many-colored  Grass?" 

In  this  story  the  purport,  though  less  apparent  to  the 
general  reader,  and  differently  interpreted  by  a  writer  in 
the  "North  American  Review,"  is  still  the  same  as  in 
the  preceding.  Read  the  closing  sentences,  so  eloquent 
with  a  tender  and  mysterious  meaning,  which  record, 


48          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

after  the  death  of  the  beloved  Eleanora,  the  appearance 
"from  a  far,  far  distant  and  unknown  land"  of  the 
Seraph  Ermengarde.  Observe,  too,  in  these  closing 
lines  the  indication,  so  often  manifest  in  Poe's  poems 
and  stories,  of  a  lingering  pity  and  sorrow  for  the  dead ; 
— an  ever-recurring  pang  of  remorse  in  the  fear  of 
having  grieved  them  by  some  involuntary  wrong  of 
desertion  or  forgetfulness. 

This  haunting  remembrance — this  sad,  remorseful  pity 
for  the  departed,  is  everywhere  a  distinguishing  feature 
in  his  prose  and  poetry. 

The  existence  of  such  a  feeling  as  a  prevalent  mood 
of  his  mind,  of  which  we  have  abundant  evidence,  is 
altogether  incompatible  with  that  cold  sensualism  with 
which  he  has  been  so  ignorantly  charged.  So  far  from 
being  selfish  or  heartless  his  devotional  fidelity  to  the 
memory  of  those  he  loved  would  by  the  world  be 
regarded  as  fanatical.  A  characteristic  incident  of  his 
boyhood  will  illustrate  the  passionate  fidelity  which  we 
have  ascribed  to  him.  While  at  the  academy  in 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          49 

Richmond,  which  he  entered  in  his  twelfth  year,  he  one 
da}7  accompanied  a  schoolmate  to  his  home,  where  he 

saw   for   the   first   time   Mrs.  II S ,  the 

mother  of  his  young  friend.  This  lady,  on  entering  the 
room,  took  his  hand  and  spoke  some  gentle  and  gracious 
words  of  welcome,  which  so  penetrated  the  sensitive 
heart  of  the  orphan  boy  as  to  deprive  him  of  the  power 
of  speech,  and,  for  a  time,  almost  of  consciousness  itself. 
He  returned  home  in  a  dream,  with  but  one  thought, 
one  hope  in  life — to  hear  again  the  sweet  and  gracious 
words  that  had  made  the  desolate  world  so  beautiful  to 
him,  and  filled  his  lonely  heart  with  the  oppression 
of  a  new  joy.  This  lady  afterwards  became  the  confi 
dant  of  all  his  boyish  sorrows,  and  her's  was  the  one 
redeeming  influence  that  saved  and  guided  him  in  the 
earlier  days  of  his  turbulent  and  passionate  youth. 
After  the  visitation  of  strange  and  peculiar  sorrows  she 
died,  and  for  months  after  her  decease  it  was  his  habit 
to  visit  nightly  the  cemetery  where  the  object  of  his 
boyish  idolatry  lay  entombed.  The  thought  of  her — 


50          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

sleeping  there  in  her  loneliness — filled  his  heart  with  a 
profound,  incommunicable  sorrow.  When  the  nights 
were  very  dreary  and  cold,  when  the  autumnal  rains  fell 
and  the  winds  wailed  mournfully  over  the  graves,  he 
lingered  longest  and  came  away  most  regretfully. 

It  was  the  image  of  this  lady,  long  and  tenderly,  and 
sorrowfully  cherished,  that  suggested  the  stanzas  "  to 
Helen,"  published  among  the  poems  written  in  his 
youth,  which  Russell  Lowell  says  have  in  them  a  grace 
and  symmetry  of  outline  such  as  few  poets  ever  attain, 
and  which  are  valuable  as  displaying  "  what  can  only 
be  expressed  by  the  contradictory  phrase  of  innate 
experience" 

As  the  lines  do  not  appear  in  the  latest  editions  of 
his  poems  we  give  them  here. 

"  Helen,  thy  beauty  is  to  me 

Like  those  Nicean  barks  of  yore, 
That  gently,  o'er  a  perfumed  sea, 

The  weary,  wayworn  wanderer  bore 
To  his  own  native  shore. 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  51 

On  desperate  seas  long  wont  to  roam, 

Thy  hyacinth  hair,  thy  classic  face, 
Thy  Naiad  airs  have  brought  me  home 

To  the  glory  that  was  Greece, 
To  the  grandeur  that  was  Eome. 

Lo !  in  yon  brilliant  window  niche, 

How  statue-like  I  see  thee  stand, 

The  agate  lamp  within  thy  hand ! 
Ah,  Psyche,  from  the  regions  which 

Are  Holy  Land!  " 

f 

In  a  letter  now  before  us,  written  within  a  twelve 
month  of  his  death,  Edgar  Poe  speaks  of  the  love 
which  inspired  these  verses  as  "  the  one,  idolatrous,  and 
purely  ideal  love  "  of  his  passionate  boyhood. 

In  one  of  the  numbers  of  Russell's  Magazine  there  is 
a  transcript  of  the  first  published  version  of  the  exquisite 
poem  entitled  "Lenore,"  commencing 

"  Ah  broken  is  the  golden  bowl  1  the  spirit  flown  forever, 
Let  the  bell  toll !  a  saintly  soul  floats  on  the  Stygian  river." 


52          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

It  is  remarkable  that,  in  this  earlier  version,  instead  of 
LENORE  we  have  the  name  of  HELEN.  The  lines  were 

afterwards  greatly  altered  and  improved  in  structure 

• 

and  expression,  and  the  name  of  Lenore  was  introduced, 
apparently  for  its  adaptation  to  rhythmical  effect.  What 
ever  may  be  the  meaning  that  underlies  this  strange 
funeral  anthem  it  will  always  be  admired  for  the  trium 
phant  music  of  its  sorrow  and  for  its  sombre  pomp  of 
words.  We  may  trust  that  the  "  Sabbath  Song  "  did 
indeed 

"  Go  up  to  God  so  solemnly  the  dead  could  feel  no  wrong." 

The  ideas  which  haunted  the  brain  of  the  young  poet 
during  his  watch  in  the  lonely  church-yard — the  shape 
less  fears  and  phantasms, 

"Flapping  from  out  their  Condor  wings 
Invisible  "Woel" 

were  the  same  which  overwhelmed  Be  Quincey  at  the 
burial  of  his  sweet  sister  and  playmate,  as  described  by 
him  in  the  "Suspiria  De  Profundis" — ideas  of  terror 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  53 

and  indescribable  awe  at  the  thought  of  that  mysterious 
waking  sleep,  that  powerless  and  dim  vitality,  in  which 
"the  dead"  are  presumed,  according  to  our  popular 
theology,  to  await  "  the  general  resurrection  at  the  last 
day."  What  wonder  that  the  phantoms  of  "  Shadow" 
and  "Silence,"  once  evoked  there,  could  never  be  exor 
cised!  What  wonder  that  "the  fable  which  the  Demon 
told  in  the  shadow  of  the  tomb"  haunted  him  for  ever! 
"Now  there  are  strange  tales  in  the  volumes  of  the 
Magi — in  the  iron-bound,  melancholy  volumes  of  the 
Magi — glorious  histories  of  the  Heaven,  and  of  the 
Earth,  and  of  the  mighty  Sea— and  of  the  Genii  that 
overruled  the  sea  and  the  earth  and  the  lofty  heaven ; 
there  was  much  lore,  too,  in  the  sayings  of  the  Sybils. 
and  holy,  holy  things  were  heard  of  old  by  the  dim 
leaves  that  trembled  around  Dodona — but,  as  Allah 
liveth,  that  fable  which  the  Demon  told  me  as  he  sat  by 
my  side  in  the  shadow  of  the  tomb,  I  hold  to  be  the  most 
wonderful  of  all !  And  as  the  Demon  made  an  end  of 
his  story,  he  fell  back  within  the  cavity  of  the  tomb  and 


54  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

laughed.  And  I  could  not  laugh  with  the  Demon,  and 
he  cursed  me  because  /  could  not  laugh.  And  the  lynx 
which  dwelleth  forever  in  the  tomb,  came  out  and  sat 
at  the  feet  of  the  Demon  and  looked  him  steadily  in 
the  face." 

These  solitary  church-yard  vigils,  with  all  their  asso 
ciated   memories,  present   a   key  to  much  that  seems 
strange  and  abnormal  in  the  poet's  after  life.     Questions 
which  no  human  tongue  could  answer,  no  human  know 
ledge  satisfy  or  silence,  then  found  an  utterance  in  the 
vast  and  desolate  chambers  of  his  imagination,  and  their 
mournful    echoes   are   heard  again   and   again  in  the 
magic   cadences    of  his  verse.     In  the   "Colloquy  of 
Monos  and  Una"   he  has  imagined  all  the  phases  of 
sentient  life  in  the  grave,  and  in  the  "  Bridal  Ballad'' 
are  stanzas  which,  as  read  by  the  author,  were  full  of  a 
wild,  sad  pathos  not  easily  forgotten.     "We  will  instance 
only  two  of  the  stanzas  although  their  rhythmical  effect 
is  injured  by  their  separation  from  those  which  precede 
and  accompany  them. 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  55 

"And  my  lord  lie  loves  me  well  ; 

But  when  first  he  breathed  his  vow 
The  words  rang  as  a  knell, 
And  the  voice  seemed  his  who  fell 
In  the  battle  down  the  dell, 
And  who  is  happy  now. 
***** 
Would  God  I  could  awaken ! 

For  I  dream  I  know  not  how, 
*  And  my  soul  is  sorely  shaken 

Lest  an  evil  step  be  taken— 
Lest  the  dead,  who  is  forsaken, 
May  not  be  happy  now." 

The  thought  which  informs  so  many  of  his  tales  and 
poems  betrays  its  sad  sincerity  even  in  his  critical  writ 
ings,  as,  for  instance,  in  a  notice  of  "Undine"  in  the 
"  Marginalia.'5  Yet  it  has  been  said  of  him  that  "  he 
had  no  touch  of  human  feeling  or  of  human  pity,"  that 
"he  loved  no  one  but  himself" — that  "he  was  an 
abnormal  and  monstrous  creation," — "possessed  by 
legions  of  devils."  The  most  injurious  epithets  have 


56  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

been  heaped  upon  his  name  and  the  most  improbable 
and  calumnious  stories  recorded  as  veritable  histories. 
Ten  years  have  passed  since  his  death,  and  while  the 
popular  interest  in  his  writings  and  the  popular  estimate 
of  his  genius  increases  from  year  to  year,  these  acknow 
ledged  calumnies  are  still  going  the  round  of  the  foreign 
periodicals  and  are  still  being  republished  at  home. 

We  believe  that  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Willis's 
generous  tributes  to  his  memory,  some  candid  and 
friendly  articles  by  the  Editor  of  the  Literary  Messen 
ger,  and  an  eloquent  and  vigorous  article  in  Russell's 
Magazine  by  Mr.  J.  Wood  Davidson,  of  Columbia,  S.C. 
( who  has  appreciated  his  genius  and  his  sorrow  more 
justly  perhaps,  than  any  of  his  American  critics)  this 
great  and  acknowledged  wrong  to  the  dead  has  been 
permitted  to  pass  without  public  rebuke  or  protest. 

In  the  memoir  prefixed  to  the  Illustrated  Poems,  it 
is  said  of  him  that  "  his  religion  was  a  worship  of  the 
beautiful,"  which  is  emphatically  true,  and  that  "he 
knew  no  beauty  but  that  which  is  purely  sensuous," 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          57 

which  is,  as  emphatically,  untrue.  We  appeal  from 
this  last  assertion  to  Mr.  Poe's  own  exposition  of  his 
poetic  theory.  He  recognises  the  elements  of  poetic 
emotion — the  emotion  of  the  beautiful — "in  all  noble 
thoughts,  in  all  holy  impulses,  in  all  chivalrous,  generous, 
and  self-sacrificing  deeds"  His  "aesthetic  religion," 
which  has  been  so  strangely  misapprehended  was  simply 
a  recognition  of  the  divine  and  inseparable  harmonies  of 
the  supremely  Beautiful  and  the  supremely  Good. 

The  author  of  the  very  able  and  systematic  critique 
in  the  North  American  Review  (which  is,  nevertheless, 
essentially  false  in  all  its  estimates  of  intellectual  and 
moral  character)  tells  us  that  he  "  repudiated  moral  'uses 
in  his  prose  fictions  as  in  his  poetry,  and  that  if  moral 
or  spiritual  truths  are  found  in  them  they  must  have 
got  there  accidentally,  without  the  author's  permission 
or  knowledge."  This  is  very  unjust.  To  prove  its 
injustice  we  have  only  once  more  to  quote  the  author's 
own  words.  "  Taste,"  the  sense  of  the  beautiful,  "holds 
intimate  relations  with  the  intellect  and  the  moral  sense ; 


58  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

from  the  moral  sense  it  is  separated  by  so  faint  a 
difference  that  Aristotle  has  not  hesitated  to  place  some 
of  its  operations  among  the  virtues  themselves."  Again, 
"The  poetic  sense  is  strictly  and  simply  the  human 
aspiration  for  supernal  beauty.  It  is  no  mere  apprecia 
tion  of  the  beauty  before  us,  but  a  wild  effort  to  reach 
the  beauty  above — a  prescience  of  that  loveliness  whose 
very  elements,  perhaps,  appertain  to  Eternity  alone." 

The  current  strictures  on  Foe's  sinful  worship  of 
J^eauty  remind  us  of  the  satirist,  Shoppe,  in  Jean  Paul's 
"Titan,"  who  says,  "In  one  respect  we  Germans  are  far 
in  advance  of  the  Greeks  and  Italians.  We  never  seek 
the  Beautiful  without  looking  for  collateral  advantages ; 
our  caryatides  must  uphold  pulpits,  and  our  angels  bear 
baptismal  fonts." 

We  are  ready  to  admit,  with  the  severe  critic  of  the 
North  American,  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  Foe's 
stories  are  filled  w  ith  monstrous  and  appalling  images — 
that  many  of  them  oppress  the  reader  like  frightful 
incubi,  from  whose  influence  he  vainly  tries  to  escape. 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  59 

Ruskin  tells  us,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Grotesque,  that 
it  is  the  trembling  of  the  human  soul  in  the  presence 
of  Death  which  most  of  all  disturbs  the  images  on  the 
intellectual  mirror,  investing  them  with  the  grotesque 
ghastliness  of  fitful  dreams.  "If  the  mind  be  not 
healthful  and  serene  the  wider  the  scope  of  its  glance 
and  the  grander  the  truths  of  which  it  obtains  an  insight 
the  more  fantastic  and  fearful  are  these  distorted 
images." 

Yet,  as  out  of  mighty  and  terrific  discords  noblest 
harmonies  are  sometimes  evolved,  so  through  the  pur 
gatorial  ministries  of  awe  and  terror,  and  through  the 
haunting  Nemesis  of  doubt,  Poe's  restless  and  unap- 
peased  soul  was  urged  on  to  the  fulfilment  of  its 
appointed  work — groping  out  blindly  towards  the  light, 
and  marking  the  approach  of  great  spiritual  truths  by 
the  very  depth  «f  the  shadow  it  projected  against 
them. 

It  would  seem  that  the  true  point  of  view  from  which 
his  genius  should  be  regarded  has  yet  to  be  sought. 


60  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

We  are  not  of  those  who  believe  that  any  order  of 
genius  is  revealed  to  us  in  vain  ;  nor  do  we  believe  that 
the  age  would  have  gained  anything  if  the  author  of  the 
Raven  had  proved  another  Wordsworth,   or   another 
Longfellow.     These  far-wandering  comets,  not  less  than 
"the  regular,  calm   stars,"   obey  a  law  and  follow  a 
pathway  that  has  been  marked  out  for  them  by  infinite 
Wisdom  and  essential  Love.     That  the  genius  of  Toe 
had  its  peculiar  mission  and  significance  in  relation  to 
the  age  we  cannot  doubt.     Every  man  of  electric  tem 
perament  and  prophetic  genius  represents,   or   rather 
anticipates,  with  more  or  less  of  consciousness  and  direct 
volition,  those  latent  ideas  which  are  about  to  unfold ' 
themselves  in  humanity.     It  is  thus  that  Miiller  accounts 
for  the  origin  of  the  Greek  My  thus,  the  simple  invention 
of  which  he  pronounces  to  be  impossible,  if  by  invention 
is  meant  a  free  and  deliberate  treatment  of  something 
known  to  be  untrue.     He  regards  the  originators  of  the 
Greek  Mythus  merely  as  the  more  passive  recipients  and 
skilful  exponents  who  first  gave  form  and  expression  to 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  6l 

those  spiritual  ideas  which,  were  tending  to  organic 
development  at  that  particular  stage  of  the  world's 
progress— "  the  foci  in  which  the  scattered  rays  of 
spiritual  consciousness  were  concentrating  themselves 
to  be  radiated  forth  with  new  intensity."  When  Poe's 
genius  began  to  unfold  itself  the  age  was  moving 
feverously  and  restlessly  through  processes  of  transition 
and  development  which  seemed  about  to  unsettle  all 
things,  yet,  gave  no  clear  indication  of  whither  they 
were  leading  us. 

In  our  own  country,  Mr.  Emerson's  assertion  of  the 
transcendental  side  of  the  ever-recurring  question 
between  idealism  and  materialism  marked  the  reaction 
of  intellectual  and  spiritual  tendencies  against  the 
materialism  and  literalism  of  the  churches.  Through 
him  the  fine  idealism  of  the  German  Mystics  penetrated 
our  literature  and  spiritualized  our  philosophies.  His 
novel  statements  of  truth  had  in  them  a  strange  force 
and  directness,  startling  the  sleepers  like  the  naive 

cadences  of  a  child's  voice  heard  amid  the  falsetto  tones 
6 


62  Edgar  Foe  and  his  Critics. 

of  the  conventicle  or  the  theatre.  What  a  sovran 
grace  of  sincerity  in  his  chapter  on  Experience.  What 
noble  ethics  in  his  statement  of  spiritual  laws.  Yet,  if 
we  turn  to  the  pages  of  Emerson  and  look  for  the 
evidences  of  his  belief  in  the  soul's  individual  immor 
tality,  we  shall  find  that  the  words  he  has  uttered  on  the 
subject  express,  for  the  most  part,  either  a  purely 
Oriental  indifference  or  an  aimless  and  anxious  ques 
tioning.  In  his  lecture  to  the  Divinity  Students  of 
Cambridge,  protesting  against  the  formalism  and  famine 
of  the  churches,  he  told  them  that  the  faith  of  the 
Puritans  was  dying  out  and  none  arising  in  its  stead — 
that  the  eye  of  youth  was  not  lighted  by  the  hope  of 
other  worlds — that  literature  had  become  frivolous  and 
science  cold.  In  his  lecture  on  "  The  Times  "  he  says, 
"  We  drift  like  white  sail  across  the  wide  ocean,  now 
bright  on  the  wave,  now  darkling  in  the  trough  of  the 
sea  ; — but  from  what  port  did  we  sail  ?  Who  knows  ? 
Or  to  what  port  are  we  bound  ?  Who  knows  ?  There 
is  no  one  to  tell  us  but  such  poor  weather-tossed 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          63 

mariners  as  ourselves,  whom  we  speak  as  we  pass,  or 
who  have  hoisted  some  signal  from  afar,  or  floated  to  as 
some  letter  in  a  bottle.  But  what  know  they  more 
than  we  ? "  In  another  of  his  essays  he  says,  "  I  cannot 
tell  if  these  wonderful  qualities  which  now  house 
together  in  this  mortal  frame  shall  ever  reassemble  in 
equal  activity  in  a  similar  frame,  but  this  one  thing  I 
know,  that  the  law  which  clothes  us  with  humanity 
remains  new.  We  are  immortal  with  the  immortality 
of  this  law." 

These  expressions  indicate  the  pervading  scepticism 
of  the  time.  Coming,  as  they  do,  from  a  man  who  had 
been  educated  as  a  clergyman — a  man  for  whose  large 
culture  and  liberal  faith  in  humanity  the  pulpits  of  the 
existing  church  seemed  to  offer  no  sufficient  platform — 
they  have  an  emphasis  which  no  added  word  could 
heighten. 

The  negation  of  Carlyle,  and  the  boundless  affirma 
tion  of  Emerson,  served  but  to  stimulate  without  satisfy 
ing  the  intellect.  The  liberal  ethics  of  Fourier,  with  his 


6zj  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

elaborate  social  economies  and  systems  of  petrified 
harmony,  were  leading  his  disciples  through  forlorn 
enterprises  to  hopeless  failures.  A  ''divine  dissatis 
faction"  was  everywhere  apparent.  De  Quincey  saw 
something  fearful  and  portentous  in  the  vast  accessions 
to  man's  physical  resources  that  marked  the  time, 
unaccompanied  by  any  improvement  in  psychal  and 
spiritual  knowledge.  Goethe  had  made  his  great  dra 
matic  poem  an  expression  of  the  soul's  craving  for  a 
knowledge  of  spiritual  existences — 

"  0  giebt  es  geister  in  der  luft 
Die  zwischen  Erd'  und  Himmel  weben, 
So  steiget  nieder  aus  den  golden  duft, 
Und  furht  mich  weg  zu  neuem  bunten  leben." 

Wordsworth,  in  his  finest  imaginative  poem,  "Laoda- 
mia,"  represents  and  half  reproves  this  longing.  Byron 
iterates  it  with  a  proud  and  passionate  vehemence  in 
"Manfred."  Shelley's  sad  heart  of  unbelief,  finding 
refuge  in  a  despair  too  deep  for  aspiration,  stands 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          6_J 

apart,  as  Elizabeth  Browning  has  so  finely  sculptured 
him, 

"  In  his  white  ideal 

All  statue-blind," 

while  Keats  lies  sleeping,  like  his  own  "Endymion,"  lost 
in  dreams  of  the  "  dead  Past."  Then,  sadder,  and  lone 
lier,  and  more  unbelieving  than  any  of  these,  Edgar 
Poe  came  to  sound  the  very  depths  of  the  abyss. 
The  unrest  and  faithlessness  of  the  age  culminated  in 
him.  Nothing  so  solitary,  nothing  so  hopeless,  nothing 
so  desolate  as  his  spirit  in  its  darker  moods  has  been 
instanced  in  the  literary  history  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury. 

It  has  been  said  that  his  theory,  as  expressed  in 
"Eureka,"  of  the  universal  diffusion  of  Deity  in  and 
through  all  things,  is  identical  with  the  Brahminical 
faith  as  expressed  in  the  Bagvat  Gita.  But  those  who 
will  patiently  follow  the  vast  reaches  of  his  thought  in 
this  sublime  poem  of  the  "Universe"  will  find  that  he 

6* 


66          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

arrives  at  a  form  of  unbelief  far  more  appalling  than 
that  expressed  in  the  gloomy  Pantheism  of  India,  since 
it  assumes  that  the  central,  creative  Soul  is,  alternately, 
not  diffused  only,  but  merged  and  lost  in  the  universe, 
and  the  universe  in  it :  "A  new  universe  swelling  into 
existence  or  subsiding  into  nothingness  at  every  throb 
of  the  Heart  Divine."  The  creative  Energy,  therefore, 
"now  exists  solely  in  the  diffused  matter  and  spirit,  of 
the  existing  universe."  The  author  assumes,  moreover, 
that  each  individual  soul  retains  in  its  youth  a  dim 
consciousness  of  vast  dooms  and  destinies  far  distant  in 
the  bygone  time,  and  infinitely  awful ;  from  which 
inherent  consciousness  the  conventional  "World-Rea 
son"  at  last  awakens  it  as  from  a  dream.  "It  says 
you  live,  and  the  time  was  when  you  lived  not.  You 
have  been  created.  An  Intelligence  exists  greater  than 
your  own.  and  it  is  only  through  this  Intelligence  that 
you  live  at  all."  "These  things,"  he  says,  "we  struggle 
to  comprehend  and  cannot:  cannot,  because  being  untrue, 
they  are  of  necessity  incomprehensible. 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  67 

"No  thinking  man  lives  who,  at  some  luminous  point 
of  his  life,  has  not  felt  himself  lost  amid  the  surges  of 
futile  efforts  at  understanding  or  believing  that  any 
thing  exists  greater  than  his  own  soul.  The  intense, 
overwhelming  dissatisfaction  and  rebellion  at  the 
thought,  together  with  the  omniprevalent  aspirations 
at  perfection  are  but  the  spiritual,  coincident  with  the 
material,  struggles  towards  the  original  Unity.  The 
material  and  spiritual  God  now  exists  solely  in  the 
diffused  matter  and  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  and  the 
regathering  of  this  diffused  Matter  and  Spirit  will  be 
but  the  reconstitution  of  the  purely  Spiritual  and 
Individual  God." 

In  a  copy  of  the  original  edition  of  Eureka,  pur 
chased  at  the  recent  sale  of  Dr  Griswold's  library,  the 
following  note  was  found  inscribed  in  the  handwriting 
of  the  author  on  the  half  blank  page  at  the  end  of  the 
volume.  It  is  singularly  ingenious  and  characteristic. 

"Note. — The  pain  of  the  consideration  that  we  shall  lose  our 


>*m 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


68  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

individual  identity,  ceases  at  once  when  we  further  reflect  that 
the  process,  as  above  described,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  that 
of  the  absorption  by  each  individual  intelligence,  of  all  other 
intelligences  (that  is  of  the  Universe)  into  its  own.  That  God 
may  be  all  in  all,  each  must  become  God." 

This  proud  self-assertion  betrays  a  mysterious  isolation 
from  the  "Heart  Divine"  which  fills  us  with  sadness 
and  awe. 

We  confess  to  a  half  faith  in  the  old  superstition  of 
the  significance  of  anagrams  when  we  find,  in  the  trans 
posed  letters  of  Edgar  Poe's  name,  the  words  a  God- 
peer  ;  words  which,  taken  in  connexion  with  his  daring 
speculations,  seem  to  have  in  them  a  mocking  and 
malign  import  "which  is  not  man's  nor  angel's." 

Yet,  while  the  author  of  Eureka,  like  Lucretius, 

"  dropped  his  plummet  down  the  broad, 


Deep  Universe  and  found  no  God," 

his  works  are,  as  if  unconsciously,  filled  with  an  over 
whelming  sense  of  the  power  and  majesty  of  Deity ; 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  69 

they  are  even  dark  with  reverential  awe.  His  proud 
intellectual  assumption  of  the  supremacy  of  the  indivi 
dual  soul  was  but  an  expression  of  its  imperious  longings 
for  immortality  and  its  recoil  from  the  haunting 
phantasms  of  death  and  annihilation;  while  the  theme 
of  all  his  more  imaginative  writings  is,  as  we  have  said, 
a  love  that  survives  the  dissolution  of  the  mortal  body 
and  oversweeps  the  grave.  His  mental  and  tempera 
mental  idiosyncrasies  fitted  him  to  come  readily  into 
rapport  with  psychal  and  spiritual  influences.  Many  of 
his  strange  narratives  had  a  degree  of  truth  in  them 
which  he  was  unwilling  to  avow.  In  one  of  this  class 
he  makes  the  narrator  say,  "  I  cannot  even  now  regard 
these  experiences  as  a  dream,  yet  it  is  difficult  to  say 
how  otherwise  they  should  be  termed.  Let  us  suppose 
only  that  the  soul  of  man,  to-day,  is  on  the  brink  of 
stupendous  psychal  discoveries" 
Dante  tells  us  that 

"minds  dreaming  near  the  dawn 

Are  of  the  truth  presageful." 


70          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

Edgar  Poe's  dreams  were  assuredly  often  presageful  and 
significant,  and  while  he  but  dimly  apprehended  through 
the  higher  reason  the  truths  which  they  foreshadowed, 
he  riveted  public  attention  upon  them  by  the  strange 
fascination  of  his  style,  the  fine  analytical  temper  of  his 
intellect,  and,  above  all,  by  the  wierd  splendors  of  his 
imagination,  compelling  men  to  read  and  to  accredit  as 
possible  truths  his  most  marvellous  conceptions.  He 
often  spoke  of  the  imageries  and  incidents  of  his  inner 
life  as  more  vivid  and  veritable  than  those  of  his  outer 
experience.  We  find  in  some  pencilled  notes  appended 
to  a  manuscript  copy  of  one  of  his  later  poems  the 
words,  "  All  that  I  have  here  expressed  was  actually 
present  to  me.  Remember  the  mental  condition  which 
gave  rise  to  'Ligeia' — recall  the  passage  of  which  I 
spoke,  and  observe  the  coincidence."  With  all  the  fine 
alchymy  of  his  subtle  intellect  he  sought  to  analyze  the 
character  and  conditions  of  this  introverted  life.  "I 
regard  these  visions,"  he  says,  "even  as  they  arise,  with 
an  awe  which  in  some  measure  moderates  or  tranquil- 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  71 

lizes  the  ecstacy — I  so  regard  them  through  a  conviction 
that  this  ecstacy,  in  itself,  is  of  a  character  supernal  to 
the  human  nature — is  a  glimpse  of  the  spirit's  outer 
world."  He  had  that  constitutional  determination  to 
reverie  which,  according  to  De  Quincey,  alone  enables 
a  man  to  dream  magnificently,  and  which,  as  we  have 
said,  made  his  dreams  realities  and  his  life  a  dream. 
His  mind  was  indeed  a  "Haunted  Palace,"  echoing  to 
the  footfalls  of  angels  and  demons.  "No  man,"  he 
says,  "has  recorded,  no  man  has  dared  to  record,  the 
wonders  of  his  inner  life." 

Ts  there,  then,  no  significance  in  this  "  supernatural 
soliciting?"  Is  there  no  evidence  of  a  wise  purpose,  an 
epochal  fitness,  in  the  appearance,  at  this  precise  era,  of 
a  mind  so  rarely  gifted,  and  accessible  from  peculiarities 
of  psychal  and  physical  organization  to  the  subtle 
vibrations  of  an  ethereal  medium  conveying  but  feeble 
impressions  to  the  senses  of  ordinary  persons ;  a  mind 
which,  "following  darkness  like  a  dream,"  wandered 
for  ever  with  insatiate  curiosity  on  the  confines  of  that 


72          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

— "wild,  wierd  clime,  that  lieth  sublime 
Out  of  Space,  out  of  Time ! 
By  each  spot  the  most  unholy, 
En  each  nook  most  melancholy," 

seeking  to  solve  the  problem  of  that  phantasmal  Shadow- 
Land,  which,  through  a  class  of  phenomena  unprece 
dented  in  the  world's  history,  was  about  to  attest  itself 
as  an  actual  plane  of  conscious  and  progressive  life,  the 
mode  and  measure  of  whose  relations  with  our  own  are 
already  recognised  as  legitimate  objects  of  scientific 
research  by  the  most  candid  and  competent  thinkers  of 
our  time  ?  We  assume  that,  in  the  abnormal  manifes 
tations  of  a  genius  so  imperative  and  so  controlling,  this 
epochal  significance  is  most  strikingly  apparent.  Jean 
Paul  says  truly  that  "  there  is  more  poetic  fitness,  more 
method,  a  more  intelligible  purpose  in  the  biographies 
which  God  Almighty  writes  than  in  all  the  inventions 
of  poets  and  novelists." 

The  peculiarities  of  Edgar  Poe's  organization  and 
temperament  doubtless  exposed  him  to  peculiar  infir- 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          73 

mities.  We  need  not  discuss  them  here.  They  have 
been  already  too  elaborately  and  painfully  illustrated 
elsewhere  to  need  further  comment.  How  fearfully  he 
expiated  them  only  those  who  best  knew  and  loved  him 
can  ever  know.  We  are  told  that  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong  are  wholly  ignored  by  him — that "  no  recognitions 
of  conscience  or  remorse  are  to  be  found  on  his  pages." 
If  not  there  where,  then,  shall  we  look  for  them  ?  In 
William  Wilson,  in  "  The  Man  of  the  Crowd,"  and  in 
"  The  Tell-Tale  Heart,"  the  retributions  of  conscience 
are  portrayed  with  a  terrible  fidelity.  In  yet  another 
of  his  stories,  which  we  will  not  name,  the  fearful 
fatality  of  crime — the  dreadful  fascination  consequent  on 
the  indulgence  of  a  perverse  will  is  portrayed  with  a 
relentless  and  awful  reality.  May  none  ever  read  it 
who  do  not  need  the  fearful  lesson  which  it  brands  on 
the  memory  in  characters  of  fire !  In  the  relation  of 
this  remarkable  story  we  recognise  the  power  of  a 
genius  like  that  which  sustains  us  in  traversing  the 
lowest  depths  of  Dante's  "Inferno."  The  rapid  descent 


74          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

in  crime  which  it  delineates,  and  which  becomes  at  last 
involuntary,  reminds  us  of  the  subterranean  staircase  by 
which  Yathek  and  Nouronihar  reached  the  Hall  of 
Eblis,  where,  as  they  descended,  they  felt  their  steps 
frightfully  accelerated  till  they  seemed  falling  from  a 
precipice. 

Poe's  private  letters  to  his  friends  offer  abundant 
evidence  that  he  was  not  insensible  to  the  keenest 
pangs  of  remorse.  Again  and  again  did  he  say  to  the 
Demon  that  tracked  his  path,  "Anathema  Maranatha," 
but  again  and  again  did  it  return  to  torture  and  subdue. 
He  saw  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  but  had  no  power 
to  avert  the  impending  doom. 

In  relation  to  this,  the  fatal  temptation  of  his  life,  he 
says,  in  a  letter  written  within  a  year  of  his  death,  "The  - 
agonies  which  I  have  lately  endured  have  passed  my 
soul  through  fire.  Henceforth  I  am  strong.  This 
those  who  love  me  shall  know  as  well  as  those  who 
have  so  relentlessly  sought  to  ruin  me.  *  *  *  * 
I  have  absolutely  no  pleasure  in  the  stimulants  in 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  75 

•which  I  sometimes  so  madly  indulge.  It  has  not 
been  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  that  I  have  perilled 
life  and  reputation  and  reason.  It  has  been  in  the 
desperate  attempt  to  escape  from  torturing  memories — 
memories  of  wrong  and  injustice  and  imputed  dishonor 
— from  a  sense  of  insupportable  loneliness  and  a  dread 
of  some  strange  impending  doom."  We  believe  these 
statements  to  have  been  sincerely  uttered,  and  we  would 
record  here  the  testimony  of  a  gentleman  who,  having 
for  years  known  him  intimately,  and  having  been  near 
him  in  his  states  of  utter  mental  desolation  and  insanity, 
assured  us  that  he  had  never  heard  from  his  lips  a  word 
that  would  have  disgraced  his  heart  or  brought  reproach 
upon  his  honor. 

Could  we  believe  that  any  plea  we  may  have  urged 
in  extenuation  of  Edgar  Poe's  infirmities  and  errors 
would  make  the  fatal  path  he  trod  less  abhorrent  to 
others,  such  would  never  have  been  proffered.  No 
human  sympathy,  no  human  charity  could  avert  the 
penalties  of  that  erring  life.  One  clear  glance  into  its 


76          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

mournful  corridors— its  "  halls  of  tragedy  and  chambers 
of  retribution,"  would  appal  the  boldest  heart. 

Theodore  Parker  has  nobly  said  that  "  every  man  of 
genius  has  to  hew  out  for  himself,  from  the  hard 
marbles  of  life,  the  white  statue  of  Tranquillity." 
Those  who  have  best  succeeded  in  this  sublime  work 
will  best  know  how  to  look  with  pity  and  reverent  awe 
upon  the  melancholy  torso  which  alone  remains  to  us 
of  Edgar  Poe's  misguided  efforts  to  achieve  that  beau 
tiful,  and  august  statue  of  Peace. 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.          77 


rilHOSE  who  are  curious  in  tracing  the  effects  of  country  and 
lineage  in  the  mental  and  constitutional  peculiarities  of 
men  of  genius  may  be  interested  in  such  facts  as  we  have  been 
enabled  to  gather  in  relation  to  the  ancestry  of  the  Poet.  The 
awakening  interest  in  genealogical  researches  will  make  them 
acceptable  to  many  readers,  and  in  their  possible  influence  on  a 
character  so  anomalous  as  that  of  Edgar  Poe  they  are  certainly 
worthy  of  note.  - 

John  Poe,  the  great-grandfather  of  Edgar  Poe,  left  Ireland  for 
America  about  the.  middle  of  the  last  century.-  He  was  of  the 
old  Norman  family  of  Le  Poer,  a  name  conspicuous  in  Irish 
annals.  Sir  Roger  le  Poer  went  to  Ireland,  as  marshal  to  Prince 
John,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  and  became  there  the  founder 
of  a  race  connected  with  some  of  the  most  romantic  and  chival 
rous  incidents  of  Irish  history.  The  heroic  daring  of  Arnold 
le  Poer,  seneschal  of  Kilkenny  Castle,  who  interposed,  at  the 
ultimate  sacrifice  of  his  liberty  and  his  life,  to  save  a  noble  lady 
from  an  ecclesiastical  trial  for  witchcraft,  the  first  ever  instituted 
in  the  kingdom,  was  chronicled  by  Geraldus  Cambrensis,  and 
has  been  commemorated  by  recent  historians. 


78  Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

A  transcript  of  the  story,  as  told  by  Geraldus,  may  be  found  in 
" Ennemoser's  Magic"  and  in  "White's  History  of  Sorcery." 
The  bitter  feuds  and  troubled  fortunes  of  the  Anglo-Norman  set 
tlers  in  Ireland  are  well  illustrated  in  a  recent  genealogical 
history  of  the  Geraldines  by  the  Marquis  of  Kildare,  noticed  in 
the  Edinburgh  Quarterly  for  October  1858.  The  disastrous  civil 
war  of  1327,  in  which  all  the  great  barons  of  the  country  were 
involved,  was  occasioned  by  a  personal  feud  between  Arnold  le 
Poer  and  Maurice  of  Desmond,  the  former  having  offended  the 
dignity  of  the  Desmond  by  calling  him  a  rhymer. 

The  characteristics  of  the  le  Poers  were  ma/ked  and  distinc 
tive.  They  were  improvident,  adventurous,  and  recklessly  brave. 
They  were  deeply  involved  in  the  Irish  troubles  of  1641,  and 
when  Cromwell  invaded  Ireland  he  pursued  them  with  a  special 
and  relentless  animosity.  Their  families  were  dispersed,  their 
estates  ravaged,  and  their  lands  forfeited.  Of  the  three  leading 
branches  of  the  family  at  the  time  of  Cromwell's  invasion, 
Kilmaedon,  Don  Isle,  and  Curraghmore,  the  last  only  escaped  his 
vengeance.  The  present  representative  of  Curraghmore  is  the 
Marquis  of  Waterford.  Cromwell's  siege  of  the  sea-girt  castle 
and  fortress  of  Don  Isle,  which  was  heroically  defended  by  a 
female  descendant  of  Nicholas  le  Poer,  Baron  of  Don  Isle,  is,  as 
represented  by  Sir  Bernard  Burke  in  his  "Romance  of  the 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  79 

Aristocracy,"  full  of  legendary  interest.  The  beautiful  domain 
of  Powerscourt  took  its  name  from  the  le  Poers,  and  was  for 
centuries  in  the  possession  of  the  family.  Lady  Blessington, 
through  her  father,  Edmund  Power,  claimed  descent  from  the 
same  old  Norman  family.  The  fact  is  not  mentioned  in  Mad- 
den's  memoir  of  the  Countess,  but  is  stated  in  a  notice  of  her 
death  published  in  the  London  Illustrated  News  for  June  9th, 
1849.  The  family  of  the  le  Poers,  like  that  of  the  G-eraldines 
and  other  Anglo-Norman  settlers  in  Ireland,  passed  from  Italy 
into  the  north  of  France,  and  from  France  through  England  and 
Wales  into  Ireland,  where,  from  their  isolated  position  and  other 
causes,  they  retained  for  a  long  period  their  hereditary  traits 
with  far  less  modification  from  intermarriage  and  consociation 
with  other  races  than  did  their  English  compeers.  Meantime 
the  name  underwent  various  changes  in  accent  and  orthography. 
A  few  branches  of  the  family  still  bore  in  Ireland  the  old  Italian 
name  of  De  la  Poe. 

John  Poe,  the  great-grandfather  of  Edgar  Poe,  married  a 
daughter  of  Admiral  McBride,  distinguished  for  his  naval  achieve 
ments  and  connected  with  some  of  the  most  illustrious  families 
of  England.  From  genealogical  records  transmitted  by  him  to 
his  son,  David  Poe,  the  grandfather  of  the  poet,  who  was  but 
two  years  of  age  when  his  parents  left  Ireland,  it  appears  that 


80          Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics. 

different  modes  of  spelling  the  name  were  adopted  by  different 
members  of  the  same  family.  David  Poe  was  accustomed  to 
speak  of  the  Chevalier  le  Poer,  a  friend  of  the  Marquis  de 
Grammont,  as  having  been  of  his  father's  family.  The  grand 
father  of  Edgar  Poe  was  an  officer  in  the  Maryland  line  during 
the  war  of  the  revolution,  and,  as  Dr  Griswold  has  told  us,  the 
intimate  friend  of  La  Fayette.  He  married  a  lady  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  by  the  name  of  Cairnes,  who-  is  still  remembered  as  having 
been  a  woman  of  singular  beauty.  The  father  of  Edgar  Poe, 
while  a  law  student  in  the  office  of  Win.  Gwynn,  Esq..  of  Balti 
more,  married,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  Elizabeth  Arnold,  a  young 
English  actress  who  was  herself  but  a  child.  He  first  saw  her 
at  Norfolk,  wrhere  he  was  sent  on  professional  business,  and  in  a 
few  months  they  were  married.  Indignant  at  so  imprudent  a 
union,  his  parents  refused  their  countenance  to  the  marriage,  and 
it  was  only  after  the  birth  of  a  child  that  he  was  forgiven  and 
received  back  into  the  paternal  mansion.  During  the  period  of 
his  estrangement  from  his  family  he  had  joined  his  wife  in  a 
theatrical  engagement.  Edgar  Poe  was  the  offspring  of  this 
romantic  and  improvident  union. 

Having   recorded   our   earnest   protest   against   the 
misapprehension  of  his  critics  and  the  misstatements  of 


Edgar  Poe  and  his  Critics.  81 

his  biographists,  we  leave  the  subject  for  the  present,  in 
the  belief  that  a  more  impartial  memoir  of  the  poet 
will  yet  be  given  to  the  world,  and  the  story  of  his  sad 
strange  life,  when  contemplated  from  a  new  point  of 
view,  be  found — like  the  shield  of  bronze  whose  color 
was  so  long  contested  by  the  knights  of  fable — to 
present,  at  least,  a  silver  lining. 


THE   END. 


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